Dynasty
by theCalliope
Summary: In an alternate universe, the illicit romance between Spock and a young dancer, Uhura mirrors the unconventional relationship of his parents. Sa/Am, S/U. Imperial China-esque AU.
1. Chapter 1

_2063_

It was nightfall, and the skies were dark and dangerous. Winter was coming, and people huddled under blankets and in abandoned automobiles and around fires burning in garbage cans. An old woman in a tattered dress, a soiled towel wrapped around her head for warmth went from group to group, begging for food. No one gave her any. In the aftermath of the third world war, it was every man for himself.

Hostilities were dying, or at least as far as the inhabitants of the Staten Island greenbelt were concerned they were. It had been days since they had seen a plane overhead, or heard the harsh footsteps of troops rehearsing manoeuvres nearby. Their radios had been silent for days. For all they knew, the East and the West had finally managed to kill each other off, leaving them to live out the rest of their lives alone. In fact, that was what a lot of them thought had happened.

"The world has finally ended!" an old man, who had been drinking the last drops from cans and bottles he had scavenged from the surrounding wreckage yelled with a slur after three days of radio silence. Some people looked at him with worry, while others ignored him. Nobody spoke.

The sun had finally set when a crunching noise came from the distance. This was never a good sign. People began to hide—running into the forest, ducking in the seats of their cars, lying still under their blankets. There wasn't time to extinguish the fires.

Everyone froze as a voice came out of the woods. It was in a foreign language that no one could identify. A different voice came out, in the same language, this time a woman. She seemed to be arguing with the man. They came closer.

As they stepped into the clearing, a gasp rang out from beneath a blanket. There was something _wrong_ with then. Their faces were too angular, their ears were sharp and pointed and their skin was a ghastly olive colour. The victims of radiation from recent bombings? But their features were so smooth.

"Come out, we mean you no harm," the woman spoke out, in heavily accented English, moving forward to warm her hands over the garbage can.

"They will not come out," the man argued slowly, in equally broken language, "But at least they are not attacking us like the last group."

There was a rustle, but the humans stayed hidden.

Pulling her hands away from the fire and flexing them, the woman opened up the man's backpack.

"We shall set up, then," she said.

She pulled out a large, rectangular object and pressed a switch.

"Come out and warm up if you like," she went on, "This heater generates enough heat for a thousand people."

"They will not come out, they are too afraid," the man argued. The woman gave him a sharp glare.

"Come out," she tried one more time, "You can see we have nothing but camping gear."

There was a sound, and then a teenage boy and what looked like his father came out from beneath a tarp. A few more people joined them.

"See," the woman said, "They just needed to know we would not harm them."

The man didn't say anything.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, looking at their faces quizzically, gaping.

"I am T'Pai, and that is my husband Savek," the woman answered.

"Radiation exposure?" the father asked with a bit more tact.

"That too," T'Pai replied dryly.

"People have been trying to kill us ever since we got here," Savek tried to explain, "They do not like outsiders."

"That happens," the father spat.

Slowly, people emerged from their hiding spots and resumed their business, occasionally stopping to warm themselves by the heater and catch a glance of T'Pai and Savek's faces.

They camped three days with the humans before they heard planes overhead.

"They're bombers!" they heard a man yell, "Everyone to the shelter!"

Another man came up behind T'Pai and Savek.

"The shelter's that way, in an old bank vault. It's crowded, but it's got us through three strikes."

The two Vulcans ran in the direction he pointed

As soon as the stream of people stopped, the door was closed. An instant afterwards, they heard the ghastly boom of explosions, ringing through the vault and heating up the walls. For what seemed like hours, they waited, covering their ears. Finally, the noise stopped, and once the door had cooled down, it was opened.

People gasped as they emerged. The landscape was completely blackened, flat and rolling for as far as the eye could see. Steam was rising from it.

"I guess we walk," someone said, and slowly a line assembled. They trudged until they found the water, and then they trudged until the found a forest. But they never saw another plane or boat or other human being again for as long as any of them lived.

All of Earth's history was lost.

_2214 (55__th__ year of the Reign of Sarek)_

"The life of a lady-in-waiting is to serve the King and his court."

Amanda Grayson tried to avoid dozing off as the woman read from a book in front of her. She had been awake since five in the morning when she had gone outside to relieve herself and had seen the woman standing outside.

After going behind the house to squat where the woman couldn't see her, she had come back and stared at her curiously. She was Vulcan, and was wearing a beautiful dress, finer than anything Amanda had ever seen. Behind her was a horse-drawn carriage, with a man in the front tending the horses, and another sitting in the back, waiting. The fact that Amanda rarely saw horses or Vulcans or strangers at all made her all the more interested.

"Hello," the woman said loudly as soon as she noticed Amanda, "Do you live over there?"

Amanda nodded, trembling slightly at the attention. The woman looked at her harshly, inspecting her.

"Would you like an apple?" she asked after coming to what must have been a positive conclusion.

Amanda's family mostly ate bread. She nodded vigorously. The woman produced an apple from her bag.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" the woman went on, "We will just need to go to my carriage."

Amanda nodded again, her mouth full of apple, wanting to see the horses up close. They walked over, and the woman let her pat their noses as she yelled to the man in the carriage for a book.

"Yes, Mrs. Talbek," he answered in a high, boyish voice.

The book turned out to contain logic puzzles, and Amanda solved them quickly, while eating.

"Very good," Mrs. Talbek said, sounding pleased, "Now can you tell me the history of the royal family?"

Seeing Amanda eying her bag hungrily, she reluctantly put in her hand and pulled out an orange. Peeling it, Amanda tried to answer. She knew that Sarek was the king, but other than that, her knowledge was patchy. She had never been to school.

"Never mind," the woman snapped, "I am sure you are a quick learner."

Amanda nodded again.

"How old are you?" the woman went on.

"Twelve," Amanda answered.

"And do you have any health problems in your family?"

Amanda shook her head.

"Good," the woman said again, mysteriously, and motioned her to go, "You will hear from me again later."

That afternoon, Amanda overheard the woman talking to her father.

"I am looking for young women to serve the King," the woman said, "Your daughter seems ideal."

Her father's eyes closed as he considered the possibility.

"I am sorry," he said slowly, "But Amanda is our oldest daughter and we depend on her to work the farm and care for her siblings."

Mrs. Talbek seemed to be expecting this answer.

"I understand completely," she stated warmly, "And although I am sure that you would consider sending Amanda to serve the king an honour and a worthwhile sacrifice, we would be willing to compensate you, given your situation."

And with this, the woman brought out ten golden coins, ten _lens_. Amanda gasped. She had never seen that much money at once before.

She saw her father falter.

Soon, the woman was counting out money over the kitchen table, and soon Amanda was in the back of her carriage.


	2. Chapter 2

Amanda watched wistfully from the carriage as her town disappeared behind her, trying to convince herself that one day she would see it again. Maybe the king would only need her service for a while— older girls sometimes left her town to be domestic servants for a year or two, to earn some extra money. Amanda satisfied herself with that until the town was out of sight, and the carriage pulled into the forest. Then her stomach started sinking as she realized how much Mrs. Talbek had paid. It was enough to hire a servant for a few hundred years. The only time she'd even heard of such a sum was when Mr. Simmons, the richest man in town had paid a young couple two_ lens_ to adopt their newborn son. Her father must have sold her like that, she realized. It was the only thing that made sense, with the money and the way he had acted as Mrs. Talbek had helped her into the carriage, refusing to even look in Amanda's direction.

And she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to her brothers, she thought with a lump in her throat. They were probably waking up and wondering where she was right now.

"Whe—" Amanda tried to speak, to ask Mrs. Talbek where they were going. She looked back with a bit of a smile, as if pleased with her acquisition.

"Eat as much as you want, dear," she replied, mistaking what Amanda was trying to ask and indicating the bag of fruit beside her.

Amanda rolled an apple in her hand, but couldn't bring herself to bite it.

The carriage rolled on, and soon they were in a different village. One of the men driving the carriage called out, and soon the road was filled with parents and children, all Vulcan.

"Stay in the carriage," Mrs. Talbek warned Amanda before climbing out, and standing in front of the crowd. She told them to form three lines so that their children could be evaluated.

Reluctantly, the crowd lined up, with people pushing to be at the front. Mrs. Talbek took one line, and the two men in the carriage took the other. They started asking each girl the questions Mrs. Talbek had asked of Amanda.

Surprised by the noise, Amanda looked up from apple she'd been gazing at despondently, and after looking at the crowd for a minute, started to giggle. She'd only seen Vulcans twice in her life, and they looked so strange. Their ears were pointed like mice, and their posture as they walked was comedically stiff. She covered her mouth after Mrs. Talbek shot a dirty look in her direction.

"Next!" Mrs. Talbek yelled, pushing aside a girl who had missed the first two questions.

"But Tavi is very bright," a woman who looked the girl's her mother protested, moving her back towards Mrs. Talbek.

"Every girl must pass the test," Mrs. Talbek snapped, moving to the next girl, who she turned away because she was cross-eyed.

Two more girls failed the test. Then a woman leading a small girl walked up.

"Ladies in waiting must be between the ages of twelve and sixteen," Mrs. Talbek yelled, motioning the woman away.

"But she is twelve," the woman protested. Amanda stared at the girl. She looked about six. Mrs. Talbek shook her head.

She was about to test the next girl when one of the men called her over. He thought he had found someone suitable. Standing next to him was a girl who looked about fifteen. She was tall and muscular and her hair had a sheen that suggested she was well fed. Mrs. Talbek asked her some more questions, which she answered eagerly. Pleased, she peered in the girl's mouth, and then at her hands, and then under her long hair. Satisfied, she nodded to one of the men, who helped the girl into the carriage. She sat next to Amanda, beaming.

"Why are you so happy?" Amanda asked without thinking.

The girl gave her a strange look,

"I just got picked to be a lady in waiting, of course."

She grinned again, as if she couldn't believe her good fortune.

"Why is that good?" Amanda asked dourly, thinking of the fact that he father had sold her again.

The girl didn't seem to share her dismay.

"We'll get to live at the palace and have all the best food and clothes, and we might get to marry the king. We'll be princesses!"

The girl's eyes were half opened as she relished the thought.

Amanda tried to cheer herself up by imagining herself in a beautiful dress marrying a handsome prince, but then another thought occurred to her.

"What do they need me for then?" she asked, "I thought King Sarek was Vulcan."

The girl rolled her eyes, as if this should be obvious.

"King Sarek," she said slowly, as if she thought Amanda might not be very bright, "Needs to protect his throne from people who might seek his power, like jealous siblings. So he makes them marry humans, so they won't have any children to continue their reign."

"That's not very nice," Amanda said, thinking of how desperate Mr. Simmons had been.

"Not really," the girl said with a bit of a wink, as if she thought all this talk about the royal family was great gossip, "His father Skon was so paranoid, he ordered all his siblings killed as soon as he took power."

Amanda shivered at the thought.

Hearing a disturbance, Amanda looked over at Mrs. Talbek. She was arguing with the mother of a young boy.

"We are looking for girls only," she snapped, indicating writing on the side of the carriage, "Can't you read?"

The woman looked back at her, embarrassed. She clearly couldn't.

"Any boy or man will be accepted into the King's service," Mrs. Talbek went on a bit more kindly, "But they have to arrange their own transportation to the clinic."

She sent the woman and her son over to one of the men, who drew out the route with a stick in the dirt.

Several hours passed before the line had waned, and by the end, Mrs. Talbek had picked out three more girls. None of them seemed quite as excited as the first girl, who Amanda had learned was named T'Belah, and one of them kept looking back worriedly.

"We will be spending the night in Langstrom before making our way to the palace," Mrs. Talbek said before slamming the carriage door shut, and going to sit in the front with the men.

Throughout the journey, no one talked. One girl fidgeted with her skirt, while another sat and sobbed silently and a third stared out the window, as if entranced by her surroundings. Meanwhile T'Belah kept smiling and looking around, as if she was expecting something amazing to happen.

The horses plodded on for hours, until the sun started to set on the horizon. Then a house became visible. The men brought the carriage around to the front door, and helped the girls out. When they got inside, dinner was already waiting on the table. Amanda ate it hungrily, amazed that they were eating meat on a day that was not a holiday. T'Belah winked at her from across the table, as if to gloat that she was right about them getting the best food.

Afterwards, Mrs. Talbek sat the girls down, and gave them a long talk on the role of a ladies in waiting, royal history and palace rules.

"You will notice that there is a hierarchy among women at the palace," she said at one point, "Make sure you respect it. If you ever run into a higher-ranked woman, let her go before you."

"Conflict is common among ladies in waiting, and the king's young wives," she said at another, "But it serves no purpose. It is in your best interest to avoid conflict if possible."

After what seemed like hours, Mrs. Talbek said it was time to go to bed. Amanda was put into a room with T'Belah. The room was eerily dark, except for the light from the fire. Amanda was relieved when one of the men from the carriage came in and lit a lamp in the corner, and passed the two girls clean sleeping robes. T'Belah was used to having servants, and put her arms out for the man to dress her, but Amanda waited for him to leave so she could change in private. Then she spread her clothes out on the floor, and started to lie down.

"You can sleep in here, I don't have Labargo," she heard T'Belah call from the bed.

Amanda looked up, embarrassed. She had slept on the floor for all of her life. She had never even considered sleeping in the bed.

"And it's warmer with two," T'Belah teased as she climbed in.

The bed was more comfortable than anything she had ever felt, but Amanda still tossed and turned before she fell asleep. She wondered what her brothers were doing. Were they asleep? But what about Colin, who would never close his eyes until she had sung to him three times? She pictured her father, listening to his cries in the night. Was he thinking of her, or contemplating his new found fortune? She wondered if he regretted selling her.


End file.
